


Out of the Wind

by atamascolily



Category: Earthsea - Ursula K. Le Guin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Gender Roles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-13 02:49:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15354573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atamascolily/pseuds/atamascolily
Summary: Scenes from a life that could have been.





	1. Chapter 1

Tenar woke in the morning with a smile on her lips. She had dreamed of a sparrowhawk swooping low over the high pastures where Minty brought the goats during the summer months, with such vivid, loving intensity that could only mean one thing: Ged was on his way, and would arrive any day now. 

She hummed as she helped Ogion stir up the coals and put together a simple breakfast: bread, goat cheese, dried meat and two glowing peaches from the tree outside the hut, the first of the season. She didn't say anything to Ogion, but he knew what was in her heart; after so many years of living together, they could read the motions of each other's bodies as well as any language. 

"Ah," said Ogion when the meal was over, and he took Tenar's plate from her to wash. "Ged is coming." 

He smiled as he said it - he, too, loved Ged dearly - but Tenar blushed fiercely as she met his calm, loving gaze. 

"Yes," she agreed evenly, determined that her voice would be calm, though inside she churned with eagerness. "He is." 

"It won't be long now," Ogion said, glancing out the door of the hut as if he had glimpsed something she couldn't. When he finished washing the plates and Tenar had dried them, they went out to the garden together. Minty had milked the goats and taken them to the upper pastures before sunrise, and Ogion had fed the chickens and collected the eggs while Tenar slept, so now they could harvest the bounty of Ogion's little plot in earnest. 

They spent an hour collecting onions to string and dry in the rafters, then she fetched a ladder and took it to the orchard. The peach tree was so loaded with ripe fruit that the branches were bent and twisted from the weight, and she feared they would break under the pressure unless they were collected immediately. Ged loved peaches, and had a knack for arriving at precisely the right moment to reap the bounty with her. 

"Do they not have peaches on Roke?" she'd teased him, this time last year. "Or Selidor or Peln or The Hands or wherever else the world's wind blows you?" 

He looked up at her, the sticky juice dripping down his brown face, a few strands of dark hair falling over the scars on his cheek, and smiled. "Not like this," he said. "The peaches of Gont, like its Lady, are unmatched." 

"I am no lady," Tenar laughed, holding up her hands as a demonstration. They, too, were thick with peach juice; she was slicing up the surplus and laying them carefully on trays to dry so there would be sweetness for the winter months. 

"Don't tell the poets that. The fame of the White Lady of Gont, who brought the Ring of Erreth-Akbe to Havnor is well-known across the length and breadth of the archipelago--" 

She lobbed a peach at him playfully, and he caught it out of the air. 

"And the mage Sparrowhawk, whom she brought out of darkness? What does he say?" 

Ged set down the peach on the table in front of him and met her gaze. "I say you are even more than the songs credit; they have not seen the depths of you that I have."

Then, as now, she flushed at his words, though now they were only memories. She tried to focus on the task at hand, but when she slipped stepping off the ladder, Ogion made a pointed glance in the direction of the Overfell and shook his head, though he said nothing.

With a mixture of shame and relief, like a child granted the dearest wish of their heart by an indulgent parent, she took leave of him and headed for the cliff edge, her favorite spot on the island. Here, she could look down and see all the ships that sailed into Gont Port fifteen miles below; here, she could gaze over the vast, blue expanse of the sea. It was the closest she would come in this lifetime to flying, and she cherished it. 

From this distance, the _Lookfar_ was a tiny speck on the sparkling waters, a minnow compared to the trading galleys from the Andrades or O or Way. Still, Tenar had no trouble picking it out, as the distinctive red sail caught the world's wind, bearing its master home. 

(A wizard of Roke he might be, but Gont was the island of Ged's birth and would always and forever be his home.) 

She watched the _Lookfar_ come closer with the world's wind until it vanished amidst the brown that was Gont Port. Only then did she turn back to the hut with a satisfied smile, with new energy infusing her limbs as she set about the chores. She lived a simple life here with Ogion the Silent, the Mage of Re Albi, and they had few possessions. Still, there was no reason for Ged not to see it at its best. 

She boiled water and washed the linens, let them hang on the line outside to dry in the morning sun. She swept the porch and the floor, and then mopped both for good measure, opening the windows to let in the light so it might dry. 

She dusted the books on the shelf in the corner, the old cubby where Ged had slept in his time as Ogion's apprentice, two decades ago. She could read well enough, and write too, although she had not learned either until she was a woman grown, under Ogion's careful tutelage. the years since Tenar had come to Gont, Ogion had taught her what he knew of the world, including much of his wizardry. She knew enough of the language of Making to understand what was in those books, though they did not speak it often and she had never used it to summon or change at will, the way Ged would. 

She had a tense relationship - not outright hostile, but not easy, either - with Ivy, the village witch of Re Albi, who saw her as a rival or an enemy, despite Tenar's opinions to the contrary. Like the other villagers, she accorded Tenar a grudging respect that was due more to Ogion's presence than anything Tenar herself had said or done. She got along much better with Moss, an elderly woman whose witchery was wilder and less controlled than Ivy's, who had taught her the knowledge of women - herbs, healing, and the old deep mysteries that Ogion was not suited to reveal to her. 

Tenar had always existed on the fringes of Re Albi, tolerated by the villagers because of their love for Ogion. She was a foreigner, tall and pale, taken from her parents as a child and raised to be the priestess of strange foreign gods none of the Gonitsh folk would recognize. The Kargs hadn't raided the island since the Ring of Erreth-Akbe had returned to Havnor, but the villagers' mistrust persisted; the Kargs were strange folk, and Tenar, though harmless, wore her true name openly, as only the bravest Archipelagans--or the dead--dared to do. They called her the White Lady, like the poets, if they were feeling respectful; or Goha, like the white spinning house spider, if affectionate; and no name at all if neither emotion stirred in them when she walked down the village lane on errands for the old mage. 

She let them do as they would. She could not help that she did not fit, and she was not willing to change to accommodate them. She had grown up a priestess of the Nameless Ones, she was used to solitude, and vague respect that bordered on dread. 

But there were no roles for a forsaken priestess here on Gont, and precious few other roles to fill. She was not the daughter of a noble house like the Lord of Re Albi's; she was no wife; she was no witch. The best that could be said of her was that she was a mage's ward; she kept his house and wove on her loom, and that was that. 

There was little outlet for her knowledge of magic, no role where she could use it in a way that would be accepted by the community, but Ogion taught her anyway. 

"Why?" she asked him once. 

"You understand it," he said, as if that answered everything. And perhaps it did. 

It was true. She did understand. It was not his fault, or hers, that the world was not ready for what she was, or what she had become under his tutelage. Even here on Gont, there was no place for the the light of her lamp to burn. But that was what she had wanted when she came here--a place to burn out of the wind for a little while, to be a person of no importance to anyone but herself and to those she cared for. That was why Ged had brought her to Ogion, and why she stayed. 

She could not have dwelt in Atuan or Karego-At or Havnor and remained herself, just as Ged could not dwell on Gont and remain Ged. 

If Tenar was a lamp hidden from the wind, a steady hearth offering shelter, Ged was a roaring flame that never stopped burning. Like wildfire, he flickered from place to place, embers carried on the breeze, going where he must to keep the balance of the world intact. 

Sometimes the flame joined with the hearth-fire, and burned brightly, but as a rule they dwelt in different realms that only occasionally intersected. That was his choice. And also hers. 

***

He came on foot, leaning on the strong, straight staff of yew that Ogion had found on the mountain peak that loomed above them, walking up the steep, dusty road to Re Albi as the village children laughed and danced around him. He was known here as Ogion's student, and though he was a powerful and famous wizard, and rumors swirled that one day he would be Archmage of Roke and all the world besides, he was still one of theirs, one of their own, in a way that Tenar would never be. She did not envy him his powers or his fame. He had his trials to bear, and she had hers. 

She met him at the garden gate, and embraced him, careful to show no more than brotherly affection. "Ged," she whispered in his ear--his true-name, which he had offered to her freely, long ago in the darkness of the tombs of the Nameless Ones of Atuan, in the Kargide Lands. 

"Tenar," he said, meeting her gaze. They looked at each other for a long time, before Ged's gaze turned towards the peach trees. 

"We spent all morning picking peaches," Tenar said. "I saved the over-ripe ones for you." 

He laughed at this, and they embraced again. She drew him by the hand towards Ogion's hut. to where the older mage sat in the doorway, waiting for them, his own staff at his side. 

"Master," Ged said, as he knelt to embrace his teacher and be embraced in turn. 

"Ged," said Ogion the Silent, a man of few words, who had given him that name long ago. 

"It is good to see you again," Ged said. "I have come from Roke and all of the masters send you their greetings." 

"Hmm," said Ogion, looking past the student he loved like a son up to Gont Peak. "I shall hear all about them this evening when I return. Until then, be welcome, Ged--" 

He raised himself to his feet with the aid of his staff, and strode down the path to the forest that bordered the pastures and fields. Ged and Tenar watched him vanish. 

"He looks far older than I remember," Ged said at last. 

Tenar nodded. "I do not know how much time he has." 

"I hope I can be here when he passes. If fate is kind, I will be." 

She sighed inwardly. _You wouldn't miss it if you chose to stay,_ she thought, though she knew better than to speak those words aloud. No sense in igniting old quarrels now, so soon on the heels of his arrival. 

She led him inside, and drew the door closed behind him. There was much they shared with each other, only some of which required words. 

***

They kept their love a secret from all but Ogion, who smiled and said nothing, as was his wont. Sorcerors often married, but mages never did, and the wizards of Roke were expected to be celibate lest they lose their powers. 

"Foolish nonsense, Tenar," Ged said, as he was fond of saying in the aftermath of loving, as they lay together hidden under his magery in the upper pasture, propping himself up on an elbow to study her face more closely. "There are powers in love that they know not of, that they dismiss. Yet was not the island of Solea lost forever, for the love of Elfarren and no lesser power? And though in that case, those feelings led to loss, yet it need not always be so. The witches know this, I think." 

Moss, who had said much to Tenar on this very subject, would agree, she thought, and she nodded. "We two together have a power that the masters of Roke do not," she said. "It is different from their power, or from any other power I know. I do not understand it, but I treasure it all the same." 

"And I have not found it to be an impediment to _my_ wizardry," Ged continued. "But they on Roke are afraid, Tenar, afraid of women--afraid to lose what importance they have if they share their power, so they claim it cannot be shared. It will change--it _must_ change--and yet they are not ready for it now. And yet sometimes I think--if I--if _we_ challenged them--" 

"Hush," said Tenar, and kissed him. "No more foolish talk. When you are Archmage, you can open the doors of Roke to women and offend them all; until then, hold your tongue or retire here with me and Ogion and we will scandalize the villagers together."

She thought for a moment. "But I will not live here in Re Albi openly as your lover without you. If you will not sacrifice your reputation on Roke, I will not sacrifice mine here."

"I understand," he said. "It is a very strange world we live in, Tenar, where such feelings have to be hidden--" 

"Out of the wind," she said. "For a time." 

He nodded. "For a time." 

*** 

"Do you ever regret not getting married and having children?" Ged asked her a few days later, on their way up to Ogion's hut from the village. 

Tenar snorted. "As I recall it, _I_ offered to marry _you_ , and _you_ declined. I thought we left the matter there. Or are you suggesting I am so desperate for marriage, I would leave you for someone else?"

"I hope not, I am too selfish to want you to go," Ged said with a sigh. 

"If you are selfish, then I am, too," Tenar said firmly. "And I suppose I could ask the same of you. Is a man's life less than complete if he leaves no wife and children behind?" 

"Not if he is a mage," Ged said. "The power fills us. My writings, and my deeds are my legacy, I suppose. And I teach many students when I am on Roke. But I have seen the way that farmer Flint looks at you when he comes to Re Albi--"

She laughed, in spite of herself. It was too funny. "Are you jealous, Ged? The most powerful mage in the world, a Dragonlord, the guest of princes, envious of a Gontish farmer casting eyes on a foreign stranger?" 

"No. Well, I mean, yes, of course, I am. But I would understand if you chose him. He offers you what I cannot. Prescence. Constancy. Children. Acceptance in the community." 

She rolled her eyes. "Flint has never washed a dish in his life and never will. First his mother and now his sister does it for him, and eventually his wife, and then his daughter will. He will never share the work, never see me as a equal. Men have their sphere and women have theirs. That's just how it is here. " 

She took a deep breath. It was hard to admit the truth, even to him. 

"And I don't want that," she continued. "I would rather be here with you and Ogion. It's lonely when you're gone, but..." 

She realized she was crying as she spoke. Ged looked stricken, and wrapped an arm around her. "I am so sorry, Tenar. I should not have done this. Even now, with me here, it hurts you."

She knew what he was referring to: their relationship, the connection that pulsed between them, from the moment they had glimpsed each other by mage-light in the darkness of forgotten, nameless gods. Their hands clasped together as they greated the lords of Havnor. The kiss that sealed their fate as they sailed for Gont, out of sight of any lands, and they were the only people in the world, free and unfettered by custom and convention. The love they had for each other, the love they had not surrendered, only hidden from the world, like a precious jewel, reserved for their eyes alone. 

She sighed, and pushed him away, lest any villagers glimpse them and tongues begin to wag. "I was lonely before I met you in the Tombs. Then I met you, and my life changed, but I am not lonely as long as we are together. Life with Flint would be a different kind of loneliness, I think. With him, I would have a companion, and a a place among women, but--" She began walking uphill again, and he followed. 

"Wouldn't that be better? You lived with women before, in service to the Tombs." 

"It... would be different," Tenar said. She didn't know how to explain herself to Ged, who could go anywhere, from the furthest end of the Western Reaches to the black depths of the Under-tombs--Ged, who knew her so well and yet so frequently missed the point. "But I would rather live as a person, as a human being first and a woman second. And there is no place to do that except this hut, with the three of us, imperfect as we are.

"There is no place for a woman in this world to be a person," Tenar concluded "She must always be a woman, and nothing more; her choices are limited, unless she lives alone. I do not wish to live alone, so this is what I chose." 

Ged sighed. "It cannot last forever. The world will change. It must." 

"Yes, but will you or I be here to see it? And is changing it in this way a task we have been given in this lifetime?" 

He stared into the sky above, lost in thought, and did not answer. 

***

It was a good visit, and a long one by his standards if not hers. Ged and Ogion patched the roof of the goat-barn, and mended fences; the three of them ate peaches together in the garden and spent long summer evenings in silence, watching fireflies blink around them. Ged walked the forest paths with Ogion, and accompanied Tenar on her errands to the village; he spoke kindly to Moss, and politely to Ivy, and played with the village children while Tenar bargained for the goods they could not produce themselves. Flint watched Tenar when he came to the village and she ignored him, to Ged's relief and her own private amusement. They joined in the festivities for Longest Night, dancing and singing and chanting all night until the sun rose in the morning. Ged told stories of his adventures, and Tenar read to him from the books, while Ogion listened to them and smiled.

Though she knew it was futile, there were moments when Tenar hoped his visit would never end, that this time would be different, and he would remain. It was not. The winds shifted; the peaches were over; she and he both dreamed of a hawk taking flight, and it was time to go. 

"Why don't you stay?" she asked him as he gathered his things in preparation to leave. "This is where your heart longs to be. Why must you forsake it?" 

Her words pained him, and his face was set and heavy as he turned to her. They had had this conversation before. Always, it went the same way. "I can't," he said again. "I must go where I am summoned." 

"And if I summon you?" she said, suddenly furious at him, and her anger made her daring. She could. Even if Ogion had not taught her how to call him, she knew his true name. 

"Then I will come, Tenar. Haven't I always returned to you, whether you summon me or not? But do not ask me to stay, for I cannot linger here forever. It is not my path." 

As quickly as it had flared, her temper cooled. She knew she would not call him except at greatest need. "Will it ever let you go?" she whispered. "Is there no rest or reward for one who has done so much?" 

"I don't know," he said. "Perhaps. Something is building - I can feel it, hazy, on the edge of my dreams. But whatever it is, it is still a long way off. Don't get your hopes up, Tenar. This much, I know: there is much that I have yet to do, and I cannot rest if there is to be a King in Havnor again in my lifetime and peace across the Archipelago at last." 

Fiercely, stubbornly, she imagined coming with him--but no. There was no place for her, not on his travels, and not on Roke, she knew that. Roke was a place of men. They would not accept a woman there, no matter how skilled she was. And the magic--the power--frightened her as it moved through her. She used it, yes, but warily, and always under Ogion's careful, probing eyes. She did not want their eyes, their scorn, their anger. She would not go where she was not welcome. 

She had made a home here. It was almost-- _almost_ \--enough. But it was the life she had chosen, and she would accept it as best she could, with all of its compromises and contradictions. 

"And yet, Tenar, if I could walk in the Immanent Grove with you, and show you the trees that hold the world together--!" Ged said, with feeling, as he wrapped his arm around her. "The oldest things, since Segoy raised the islands from the sea, more ancient than dragons--" 

Listening to his words, she was deeply moved, but what could she say to answer him? There was no place for a woman on Roke and she would not venture where she was not wanted, not even on pilgrimage to the center of the mages' world. 

It was their center, perhaps, but not hers. She came from a different people, a different place, had served different gods. She had seen wonders and perils, and yet her heart did not yearn for them as his did. 

She smiled, reached up a hand to brush the scars on his cheek, their quarrel over. "One day, we may walk those trails together, and the doors of Roke be open to both of us as equals. But until then, I will remain here." 

The last thing Ged said to her, as he shouldered his pack and set off on the long, steep road to Gont Port: "Wherever I go, Tenar, know that my home is here with you. And if you call me, I will come. From the shores of the Western Reach, to the forsaken fields of the Dry Lands, I will come."


	2. Chapter 2

The years passed, and they both grew older--and Ogion older still--but little changed between them. Even when the rumors proved true, and Ged was appointed Archmage of Roke--the most powerful man in the Archipelago, save for the absent king--Tenar remained on Gont and would not go with him. 

"Not yet," she said when he asked her to go with him, and kissed him softly as if to take away the sting. "Not yet. My life is here."

"Too much of mine is elsewhere," Ged said, staring into the fire, lost in thought. "And yet what else I can I do? There are things I must do that only I can do, that I _must_ do if the balance of the world is to be maintained--and I cannot do them here."

He sighed. "And I do not like the look of the new mage the Lord of Re Albi has hired to his service. I will speak with him on the morrow before I set sail." 

He was gone the next day, her mood dark and his darker; his concern was justified. The story, when it came out a few days later, rocked the village for weeks. The lord had hired this new mage to perform dark sorcery to keep the Lord from dying and his son from inheriting. No one had seen the battle that transpired, but rumors flew of shapeshifting and fire, of broken staffs and broken wills, the mage fleeing in terror with Ged in hot pursuit. Without the mage's spells to strengthen him, the Lord of Re Albi weakened and died not long afterwards, and his son inherited his place. 

So that was settled, and yet it seemed to Tenar that the world outside grew darker despite this victory. Ged's visits were the bright spots on the horizon, and yet they were few and far between, brief and hurried when they came, and he seemed older, more lined with care, than ever, though his laugh was loud and joyous when it came. 

They did not speak much of his business, in those dark days, though Tenar knew what concerned him. She too, heard the rumors of healing spells failing, witches' charms losing their strength, wizards forgetting their spells, ghosts walking openly in broad daylight. Magic in the Archipelago worked poorly now, and no one knew why. Pirates prowled the open seas, and bandits roamed the open roads, even here on Gont. 

Tenar did not ask Ogion about the darkness, and he did not speak of it, but each knew the other felt it, and they were both worried. Still, there was nothing to be done except complete the daily chores and do what good they could for those in need. 

So when news came of an abandoned child, so deeply burned half her face was forever scarred and twisted, there was no question what she must do. Tenar did not ask Ogion for permission. When the Mage of Silence returned home, he found the injured girl stretched out on Tenar's bed, while Moss and Ivy bustled in and out with herbs and potions, fussing. 

"This is Therru. She will live with us now," Tenar announced, as he came through the door, and Ogion smiled and nodded, and sat at Therru's bedside while she slept. 

Therru, when she woke, was skittish and afraid, though she blossomed under Tenar and Ogion's care, and was especially fond of Moss. Her burns had twisted her left hand so it formed a claw, and twisted her lip so that her speech was halted and lisping, but she could walk well enough, and the scarring could not hide the keen intelligence and stubborn spirit in her eyes. Although she loved Ogion, she distrusted other men, and was terrified of strangers. Ged's unexpected arrival one windy afternoon in late autumn was a shock for her, and she ran from him and hid in the goat barn for hours until Tenar coaxed her out.

"I am gone for nine months, and find you with a child," Ged remarked dryly to Tenar after Therru had fled, "but a rather older one than is typical in these cases. What woman's wizardry have you wrought in my absence?" 

"Ha," Tenar laughed. "I am too old for child-bearing, and you know it." She told him the tale. "I think of her as my daughter. Her name is Therru." 

Ged was the only person she knew who could understand her native tongue. "You named her 'Flame'? For the fire that burned her?" 

"Do you have a better one? Ogion said that when he looks at her, all he can see is a smouldering, like embers, and her true name is not visible to him. Though she is rather young for that yet. Perhaps she'll grow into something in time." 

"Huh," Ged said thoughtfully. "I wonder. I wonder." He shook his head ruefully, and let it go. "But she is my daughter too, now, if she'll have me."

"You can start by persuading her to not to flee at the sight of you," Tenar said, as she headed for the goat barn, and he followed a half-step behind her.

"I will do what I can," he said. "I have much practice in befriending wild things."

He did, though it took several weeks for Therru to become accustomed to Ged's presence in the house. Throughout this time, Tenar could tell dark thoughts weighed on him, but he was careful never to let Therru see them. He went slowly and patiently, never rushing her, but in the end he won her trust, and in the end, Therru smiled when she saw him and let him stroke and comb her hair. 

Perhaps it helped that both of them bore their scars openly on their faces, Tenar thought one evening, watching Ged put Therru to bed. Or perhaps Therru responded to Ged's compassion, his concern and care, as Tenar herself had in the depths of the Under-tomb. 

"Do you understand what Ogion meant about her name?" Tenar asked later in the evening, when they were alone.

"I think so, for I saw it, too. I can't read her, Tenar. She is important, I know it, but her name is not visible to my senses, either. I don't understand it. I have never seen anything like it." 

He sighed. "I can think of no safer place for her to be than here with us. People tend to destroy what they do not understand. You and Ogion are willing to let her be as she is, without trying to change her." 

They sat in silence together for a long time. 

"Tenar," he said quietly. "I will be going on a journey soon into a very dark place, darker and more bleak than the ones you and I traveled together so long ago when we were young. Know if I do not return that I have always loved you. I fear--I fear--"

"You have always come back before," Tenar said calmly enough, though her heart felt as though it would burst inside her chest at the thought of him alone in the dark. "And if you do not, I will call you." 

He laughed quietly, and held her close. "Ah, Tenar, what have I ever done to deserve you?" 

"You were kind to a Kargish girl, who had grown in the darkness, in the silence and dust of the dead, her name forgotten. Who had never seen the world outside. Who had no idea that such marvels even existed. I have no regrets. I hope you don't either."

"No," he said. "No, Tenar, I don't." And that was the last they said to each other that night, though it was late indeed before they slept. 

Therru cried when Ged left, and Tenar was pale and sick to her stomach when she thought of his journey, but life returned to its daily rhythmns. It was comforting to have Therru and Ogion with her--not to mention the daily chores of the household--to keep herself from brooding. 

Months passed, and then a year, and Ged did not return, nor was there any word from him. Tenar's worries deepened, though she said nothing to Ogion and he said naught to her in turn. All was growing dark around them, and there was nothing she could do except wait and wait, for she was afraid to call him lest nothing happen and his promise to her be broken at last along with the world's magic. 

There came a day when the Mage of Silence grew ill and feverish and forsook the wandering paths in the mountains for his bed. Tenar sat with him, and soothed his brow, and feared the end was near. When Ogion was asleep at last, she walked out to the Overfell as the sun set. She stared out at the wide expanse of ocean that stretched out towards the horizon, and waited. 

"Ged," she said at last. And then, in the language of Making that Ogion had taught her long ago, when she first came to dwell with him, though she knew not what power still lay within them or if he would hear: "Come home. It's time."

There was no answer. Overhead, a hawk cried out as it dove, and vanished from sight. 

She chose to take it as an omen, but whether good or bad, she could not say. 

***

Three days later, Therru came running, tugging at her sleeves, insisting that Tenar come to the Overfell. There was a dragon, her daughter cried, trembling with surprise and shock at the sight of a storybook legend come to life. Or was there something more to it? 

It did not matter if there was more. A single dragon was enough excitement for a lifetime. There was no time to think of anything else, nor did she doubt for a moment that Therru told the truth. Tenar ran, arm and arm with her daughter, out to the Overfell to see what fate had in store for them.

"There! _There!_ " Therru pointed in the air. Tenar saw a great black speck that grew larger and larger as she watched, until it transformed into a dragon before her eyes, filling the air with its massive wingbeats until it landed on the cliff edge before them. The impact nearly knocked them over, and the wave of wind as those great wings blew and beat at them like a firestorm, warm with cinders and ashes and the smell of smoke. 

When the wind abruptly ceased and all was quiet, woman and child stood and gazed at the dragon in wonder. Its scales were dark, the color of iron, stronger and older than any metal forged by human hands since Segoy had raised the islands from the sea. 

Tenar met its eyes, though all the legends and warnings told her not to. She was lost in the dragon's gaze, utterly lost, and yet she had no fear. She was beyond all fear now. She had no doubt that the dragon had come in response to her summons, though she did not know how or why she knew. She had set something larger than herself in motion, and she surrendered to it utterly. 

"I am Kalessin," the dragon said in the language of Making. "Eldest." 

She took a deep breath, the spell of its gaze momentarily broken. "I am Tenar," she answered shakily in the same tongue. _Now I am a dragonlord,_ she thought absently, absurdly. _And how crazy Ged will think me when he returns, as I am breaking every rule he ever taught me._

"Help him down," said the Eldest--or at least that was what she thought he said, inclining his head towards the bulk of his body. She had studied this language with Ogion for many years, yet she had never been called upon to carry on such a conversation in it until now, and her tongue and mind felt thick and swollen from the effort of such bright words that the dragon spoke with such ease. 

_It is truly their native tongue,_ she thought, _and not ours_. Though given the power of such words, to make and remake the world, was it not better that way? 

"Mother," said Therru, pointing to the dragon's neck. "Father is there. Help him, please!" 

Tenar saw then what she had not noticed before: the wreck of a man clinging to the great creature's neck.

"Ged!" she cried, so startled she reverted back to her native tongue. "You came back! You came back! But of course, it had to be in the most dramatic fashion--" 

She collected herself, forced herself to speak Hardic again. "All--all right," she said to her daughter, unwilling to leave Therru behind to face the dragon alone. Yet when she tugged at her daughter's hand, urging her to follow, Therru shook her head firmly. 

Kalessin gave an impatient snort, and Tenar realized there was no time to argue. She let go of Therru's hand and stepped forward towards the dragon, though it took all her courage to move forward away from her daughter. 

With Kalessin's help, Tenar extricated a moaning and delirious Ged from the tangle of spines on the dragon's neck without hurting him further. He was in deep shock, his eyes rolling back in his head, and he didn't recognize her. She got him down onto the cliff face, only to find that Therru was still where Tenar had left her, staring up at the dragon as tears streamed down her face. 

"Eldest," Therru said hoarsely in the Language of Making, which neither Tenar nor Ged had ever taught her. "I know you! I know you!" 

Tenar stumbled in shock, unable to believe her ears. Only the fact that she was the only thing keeping a burned and battered Ged from collapsing kept her upright. 

"Well met at last, Tehanu, my daughter," the Eldest rumbled to Therru. At least that was what Tenar thought he said. There was a roaring in her ears and it was hard to concentrate on understanding the meaning with those deep, booming notes of power in his speech. "Will you come with me?" 

Tehanu. The burning star on the edge of the horizon. So simply the dragon named her, knew her. It was a true name. Tenar felt it, deep within her bones. 

Therru's eyes flickered from Kalessin to Tenar and back again, and she said something in the dragon's tongue too fast for Tenar to grasp. She caught the word 'Eldest' again and something about 'flight' and she could see how the girl looked at the dragon's wings with longing. Then something about 'unreadiness'-- 

"So be it." The Eldest turned his gaze to Tenar and Ged, and his affirmation felt like approval. Then he said something else to Therru she could not follow. 

Therru whispered to her. "He says, 'I will wait. My daughter is yours for now.'" 

"Tell him--you will always be our daughter," Tenar said slowly in Hardic, wondering what had just happened between Therru and the dragon, or if she understood their conversation aright. She had no energy for such mysteries now. She gestured to Ged, who was propped up on her shoulder, and barely conscious. "And tell him--Thank you. For bringing him home."

The dragon yawned, inclined his head in what might have been a bow as he responded. Therru translated, "Mother, he says that Father so sacrificed much for us. For the whole world. He says that he is done with doing, and has come home at last to die." 

"He will not die. Not today," Tenar said haltingly in the dragon's tongue, wondering how she dared speak so firmly to the dragon. Ged had said no human being could lie in the Language of Making, yet though she believed wholeheartedly in the truth of her words, she did not know if it would be so.

Kalessin laughed, his amusement apparent even with Tenar's flailing grasp of language. So easily he dismissed her, turning his attention back to Therru. "Farewell, daughter," he said to her, or Tenar thought he said. And then, something else she couldn't translate-- 

And then, with incredible speed for such a massive being, Kalessin took to the air and was gone, a fast-moving speck on the horizon. 

"Mother," said Therru in Hardic again, dark-faced and serious at Tenar's elbow, as if her fluency in the tongue of dragons and mages had been a dream. "Are you all right?" 

"Help me carry him," Tenar whispered. "Please." 

Therru took Ged's other arm in hers, and the three of them stumbled back to Ogion's hut, supporting each other. 

To Tenar's relief, Ogion was still alive. He was awake when they returned, though his eyes widened as he saw Ged. "Changed!" he whispered. "All changed! Ged--" 

Ged's eyes opened at the sound of his true name. "Master," he said. "I did what I must. I kept the balance. There will be a king again in Havnor. And I--am a mage no more." 

"You did well," Ogion said, and settled back on his pillow with a sigh. "And I am so--proud--" He slipped away into unconsciousness. 

"Therru, go fetch Ivy and Moss," Tenar said, as she steered Ged into a makeshift bed besides the hearth, her voice ragged and hoarse from the shocks she'd endured this afternoon. 

"Ged," Tenar whispered when Therru had gone, stroking the scars on his cheek. "You came back, you came back to us--" 

He saw her--recognized her--and smiled slightly. "It was a dark dream, the Dry Land, and the Mountains of Pain beyond them. But I heard you calling me, Tenar--I heard you calling--and I knew I had to return--"

He coughed twice, and she had to give him water before he could speak again. "Even on the verge of death in that ancient land, if you called me by my name, I would come. I promised you that much, long ago." 

"Hush," she whispered, tears filling her eyes. "Save your strength." 

For once, he obeyed, falling back into his bed, and he slept. 

***

Ogion never woke up again. He died in his sleep two days after Ged's unexpected arrival, while his student lay beside him, twisted and feverish with dark dreams. Tenar soothed her remaining patient with herbal brews and cold compasses in between attending to Ogion's burial and the daily chores of the household. 

Finally, his fever broke, and he woke at last with that familiar light in his eyes--he knew where he was and what had befallen him, and that none of it had been a dream. 

"Ogion?" he asked, glancing over to the bed where his master had lain. 

"Dead," she told him. 

He nodded soberly and sighed. "I feared it was so. At least I got a chance to say good-bye before he passed. Though perhaps we might have met each other in the dry fields of the dead, though he would not have known me." 

They sat in silence for a long time before he spoke again.

"My powers are gone," Ged continued. "I spent them all in that place where the springs of wizardry had run dry. I am a mage no more. I grieve for that loss, and yet--to be here--to be free-- to just be old Hawk, here with you, and nothing more-- nowhere to go, nothing to do--" 

"We'll have to get married," she said. "Or else the villagers will talk." 

"They'll talk no matter what we do. Better they get it out of their system in the beginning, honestly, with the marriage of the Old Mage's ward to a wandering hired man--"

"Won't they recognize you?" Tenar asked. 

He shrugged. "It's been a long time since I was last here. And I don't bear much resemblance to the man they knew. Most of them saw the staff I carried and nothing more." 

He spoke lightly, but Tenar could see how pained he was. All his life, his skill and power with magic had defined him. He'd spent years training with it, coming to know himself, long before he ever met her. It was a hard thing for him to give it up now, even if it meant they could be together. 

"Was it worth it?" she asked quietly. 

Ged met her gaze steadily. "Yes," he said at last. "But, as you know, that does not mean without pain. Tenar, I now have a glimpse of what it was like for you, to sail away from the Kargad Lands and come with me to Havnor, leaving everything you had ever known in that other life behind. But at least I can stay here with you and Therru, rest at last, and that is compensation enough. It's been a long time."

"Tehanu," said Tenar. "She is Tehanu now. The dragon--Kalessin--named her. Called her his daughter." 

"Ah," said Ged. "I wonder-- But there will time enough for that later." 

Tenar nodded. She and her daughter had not spoken of what had happened on the Overfell yet or what it meant, busy as they were with other tasks. But perhaps Ged would understand what had transpired better than she did. Tenar had witnessed everything, yet she still could not grasp its meaning. 

"A lamp out of the wind," he muttered, as if to himself. "I am out of the wind indeed now." 

"Then this is your place," Tenar sobbed, half-laughing and half-crying, as she embraced him. "Here with me, where nothing happens of great import." 

"The small things matter. They matter," Ged insisted. "Knowing you and Therru were here--was what gave me the strength to go on. And even if the poets never honor your deeds here, minstrels never sing of your stories--I do. I will." 

"You are a terrible singer," she teased, as she let him go. 

"Well, I will have plenty of time for practice," he said. 

"As long as you don't scare the goats," she said. 

"They seem to like my singing. Or at least, they did when I was a child. I will have much to relearn, it seems." 

"When do you want to get married?" 

He squeezed her hand. "As soon as possible." 

Tenar laughed, and squeezed it back. "I will see what I can arrange." 

***

True to Ged's predictions, there was much talk in Re Albi when Ogion's foreign ward married the hired man she'd nursed back to health after an accident, yet most of it was approving. It wasn't so good for a woman to be alone, ran the general feeling, and Hawk himself was quiet and kind, with a strong back and a good eye for animals. Many of the villagers privately thought it was the best thing that could have happened in the wake of the Old Mage's death, especially since Hawk didn't seem to mind the burned girl the White Lady had adopted, and treated her as kindly as he would his own daughter. 

So there was talk, but it died down fast, particularly when the villagers learned that the Archmage was missing, having fought and wrestled a demon, and dragons had been spotted flying over Roke, and there was a king now, a real king at last, the son of the Prince of Enlad and heir to Morred himself, who would be crowned soon in Havnor. Compared to such great deeds, it was hard for anyone to find much to gossip about the odd little family in the Old Mage's house, particularly when nothing out of the ordinary happened to them. 

"This is happily ever after, isn't it? Where the songs and stories don't go?" Tenar asked Ged one day while they were weeding the garden. 

Ged shrugged. "I don't think anything is ever really over. Life goes on. But if I am fated to spend the rest of my days in your company, then I will call myself a happy man indeed." 

"May we have many years of peace together," Tenar said, as she continued her weeding. "We have certainly earned it!"

"May it be so," Ged agreed, bending down to join her. "May it be so."


End file.
